A new judicial interpretation taking effect on Wednesday has tightened Chinese “lax and superficial” enforcement of environmental protection laws, Xinhua reported citing a government statement.

The government is set to introduce a “precise criteria for convictions and sentencing” while the “judicial explanation provides a powerful legal weapon.” Law enforcement should take environmental regulations seriously and “all force should be mobilized to uncover law-breaking clues of environmental pollution in a timely way,” the statement reads.

In winter of 2013 Beijing was experiencing the worst environmental data on record. Levels of dangerous particles less than 2.5 micrometres across, known as PM2.5s, were 22 times what the World Health Organization considers safe. In response to the widespread public anger, authorities introduced emergency measures to thin traffic and shut down polluting industries. Rallies also erupted in May in the city of Kunming as thousands flooded the streets to protest against the planned production of a chemical at a refinery.

“With industrialisation, urbanisation and the modernisation of agriculture, the situation for the rural environment has become grim,” the ministry said. Crucial aspects emanate from an “increase in pressure from mining pollution and severe pollution from the raising of livestock and poultry.”

The Chinese Government is the biggest polluter in China! Kind of like “the pot calling the kettle black!” China surpassed the U.S. in carbon emissions and air pollution already by a large margin. The Chinese Government allows more coal burning plants, Canadian Tar Sands oil burning, industrial, and car pollution than any other country! If they are going to punish the polluters then they better start with their own government officials! – John Loeffler, Fountain City, Wisconsin, U.S.A.

Daily air pollution in Beijing, China (city population over 20 million people)

Barnes’ case appears to be well supported by the facts: Last week the USDA announced the shock discovery that genetically engineered wheat strains from Monsanto’s open-field experiments had escaped and spread into commercial wheat farms. Almost immediately, Japan and South Korea cancelled wheat purchase contracts from the United States, and more cancellations are expected to follow. The more countries reject U.S. wheat due to GMO contamination (genetic pollution), the lower wheat prices will plunge and the more economic damage will be felt by U.S. farmers.

Monsanto now a confirmed genetic polluter

GMO wheat (i.e. “GE wheat”) has never been commercially grown in the United States… at least not on purpose. Experimental fields were approved by the USDA and planted across 16 U.S. states. Until now, it was not known that these GE wheat experiments escaped their designated field plots and began to spread as a form of self-replicating genetic pollution.

A new study illustrates the disturbing truth about what mining is doing to our water supply. (Photo: Steve Baxter/Getty Images)A new and sobering report from Earthworks details just how hard mining is on the environment, especially on our dwindling supply of fresh water.How bad are gold, copper and uranium—the so-called “hard rock”—mines? Try the despoiling of 17 to 27 billion gallons of fresh water per year in the U.S. alone.

The annual cost of water treatment by the hard-rock mining industry is a mind-numbing $57 to $67 billion per year. Just 40 mines, most in the American West, cause most of that damage and expense.

How? Virtually all mining operations involve exposing sulfide-bearing ore, which generates sulfuric acid, which then washes into the water supplies.

In the simplest terms, the authors suggest if the water polluted by mines were bottled, it would fill two trillion water bottles and stretch back and forth to the moon 54 times.

The report also suggests that four new proposed mines could pollute an additional 16 billion gallons a year.

Talking about water supplies can be a slippery subject. There are something like 326 million trillion gallons of water on the planet, which are constantly being cycled and recycled: Water evaporates from the ocean, travels through the air, rains down on the land and eventually makes its way back to the ocean.

Since roughly 72 percent of planet Earth is covered by ocean, that means 98 percent of those 326 million trillion gallons are saltwater, thus undrinkable.

That leaves just two percent of the planet’s water as fresh—and 80 percent of that is locked up in the polar ice caps and glaciers. Which means in relative terms, there is very little clean, fresh water on the planet, and when you muck it up, as the mining industry is doing to aquifers, rivers and fisheries, it’s ruined forever. Dirty water is never again truly pure, no matter the filtration systems.

The authors of the report make specific suggestions on how the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers could close legal loopholes that would force mines to pollute less.

Since the EPA has already identified 156 hard-rock mining sites across the country that have the potential to cost between $7 billion to $24 billion to clean up, a key solution would seem to be to prohibit new mines coming online to add to the problem.

1. Koch Industries, which the brothers own, is one of the top ten polluters in the United States — which perhaps explains why the Kochs have given $60 million to climate denial groups between 1997 and 2010.

2. The Kochs are the oil and gas industry’s biggest donors to the congressional committee with oversight of the hazardous Keystone XL oil pipeline. They and their employees gave more than $300,000 to members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in 2010 alone.

3. From 1998-2008, Koch-controlled foundations gave more than $196 million to organizations that favor polices that would financially enrich the two brothers. In addition, Koch Industries spent $50 million on lobbying and some $8 million in PAC contributions.

5. The Kochs are suing to take over the Cato Institute, which has accused the Kochs of attempting to destroy the group’s identity as an independent, libertarian think and align it more closely with a partisan agenda.

6. A Huffington Post source who was at a three-day retreat of conservative billionaires said the Koch brothers pledged to donate $60 million to defeat President Obama in 2012 and produce pledges of $40 million more from others at the retreat.

8. Koch Industries has an annual production capacity of 2.2 billion pounds of the carcinogen formaldehyde. The company has worked to keep it from being classified as a carcinogen even though David Koch is a prostate cancer survivor.

9. The Koch brothers’ combined fortune of roughly $50 billion is exceeded only by that of Bill Gates in the United States.

Note: Here is a full list of all universities as of August 2011 to which the Kochs donate — some of which accept strings attached to hiring decisions:

University Programs Supported by the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation August 2011*Funding for Kansas schools is provided by the Fred C. and Mary R. Koch Foundation.
Alma College
American University
Andrew CollegeArkansas Tech University
Ashland University
Athens State University
Azusa Pacific University
Ball State University
Barton College
Baylor University
Beloit College
Berry College
Bethel College – Indiana
Boise State University
Brown University
Buena Vista University
California State University – East Bay
Campbell University
Carnegie Mellon University
Carthage College
Chapman University
Charleston Southern University
Christendom College
Christopher Newport University
City University of New York
Claremont McKenna College
Clemson University
Coastal Carolina University
College of Charleston
College of New Jersey
College of William and Mary
Colorado College
Dartmouth College
Delaware State University
Duke University
Duquesne University
Fayetteville State University
Florida Atlantic UniversityFlorida Gulf Coast University
Florida State University
Friends University*
George Fox University
George Mason University
George Washington University
Georgia College and State University
Georgia State University
Georgia Tech University
Grove City College
Hamilton College
Hampden-Sydney College
Hanover College
Henderson State University
High Point University
Hillsdale College
Jacksonville State University
James Madison University
Kansas State University*
La Sierra University
Lake Forest College
Lakeland College
Lindenwood University
Linfield College
Louisiana State University
Loyola University – Chicago
Loyola University – New Orleans
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
McGill University
McKendree University
Mercer University
Metropolitan State College of Denver
Michigan State University
Midwestern State University
Milligan College
Montana State University – Bozeman
Montclair State University
Morehead State University
National University
Nicholls State University
North Carolina State University
Northeastern State University
Northern Illinois University
Northwestern Oklahoma State University
Northwestern University
Northwood University – Florida
Northwood University – Michigan
Northwood University – Texas
Oglethorpe University
Ohio University
Patrick Henry College
Pennsylvania State University
Pennsylvania State University – Erie
Pepperdine University
Presbyterian College
Providence College
Randolph-Macon College
Regent University
Rhodes College
Robert Morris University
Rockford College
Saginaw Valley State University
Salisbury University
San Jose State University
Sarah Lawrence College
Seton Hall University
Skidmore College
Southern Illinois University – Carbondale
Southern Methodist University
St. Ambrose University
St. Cloud State University
St. Edwards University
St. John Fisher College
St. John’s University
St. Lawrence University
St. Vincent College
State University of New York – Binghamton
State University of New York – Buffalo
State University of New York – Plattsburgh
Stephen F. Austin State University
Stillman College
Stonehill College
Suffolk University
Texas A&M University
Texas Christian University
Texas State University – San Marcos
The King’s College
Trinity College
Troy University
University of Akron
University of Alabama
University of Alabama – Birmingham
University of Alabama – Huntsville
University of Alaska – Fairbanks
University of Arizona
University of Arkansas – Little Rock
University of California – Davis
University of California – Los Angeles
University of California – Riverside
University of Central Arkansas
University of Colorado – Boulder
University of Dallas
University of Dayton
University of Hawaii
University of Houston
University of Illinois – Springfield
University of Kansas*
University of Kentucky
University of Louisville
University of Maine – Machias
University of Memphis
University of Michigan
University of Missouri – Columbia
University of Nebraska – Omaha
University of Nevada – Reno
University of North Alabama
University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill
University of Notre Dame
University of Oklahoma
University of Richmond
University of Rochester
University of San Diego
University of South Alabama
University of South Florida
University of Texas – Arlington
University of Texas – Austin
University of Texas – El Paso
University of Texas – Pan American
University of Texas – San Antonio
University of Tulsa
University of Virginia
University of Virginia – College at Wise
University of Washington
University of West Florida
University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire
University of Wisconsin – Madison
Utah State University
Villanova University
Wake Forest University
Wesleyan College
West Virginia University
Western Carolina University
Western Kentucky University
Western Michigan University
Wheaton College
Whitman College
Winston-Salem State University
Yeshiva University

Note: Money talks! The Koch Brothers have billions of dollars invested in various industries, mainly dirty fossil fuels, so what better way to knock some greed out of those dirty bastards than to divest in green, renewable energy that makes sense and cents! John E Loeffler- Fountain City, Wisconsin

Cleanup efforts are currently underway in four separate oil spills that have occurred in the last ten days.

On March 27th, a train carrying Canadian tar sands dilbit jumped the rails in rural Minnesota spilling an estimated 30,000 gallons of black gold onto the countryside.

Two days later a pipeline ruptured in the town of Mayflower, Arkansas, sending a river of Albertan tar sands crude gurgling down residential streets. And news is just breaking about a Shell oil spill that occurred the same day in Texas that dumped an estimated 700 barrels, including at least 60 barrels of oil into a waterway that leads to the Gulf of Mexico (stay tuned for more on that).

This week a Canadian Pacific freight train loaded with oil derailed, spilling its cargo over the Northwest Ontario countryside. Originally reported as a leak of 600 liters, the CBC reported on Thursday that the estimated volume of the spill has increased to 63,000 liters.

The accelerating expansion of Alberta’s tar sands has North America’s current pipeline infrastructure maxed out and, as a result, oil companies have been searching for an alternative way to move their product to market. As lobbying efforts around the stymied Keystone XL and Northern Gateway pipelines intensify, oil companies have been quietly loading their toxic cargo onto freight trains.

There has been a marked boost in the rail transport of crude in the last three years as new extraction techniques increase production in the tar sands. According to Reuters, “U.S. trains carried 233,800 carloads of crude oil in 2012, more than double the 65,800 carloads transported in 2011 and dwarfing the 29,600 in 2010, according to figures from the Association of American Railroads.”

Meanwhile the Canadian Pacific Railway’s crude oil volumes have skyrocketed from 2,800 carloads in 2010 to a staggering 53,000 last year. The company hopes to increase that number to over 70,000 this year.

Most, if not all, advocates of pipeline transportation will argue that the growing use of rail transport emphasizes the urgent need for pipelines. Pipelines are commonly touted as a more reliable mode of fuel transport than rail.

Pipelines, as the story goes, are safe.

Unfortunately for pipeline proponents, last week’s pipeline rupture in Arkansas is no anomaly in the history of US pipelines. In fact, pipelines have made a pretty consistent mess throughout the States for the last 20 years. One thing has changed, however: those messes are getting more expensive to clean up.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) is responsible for reporting and recording all “significant pipeline incidents” which are all incidents exceeding the cost of $50,000 (in 1984 dollars).

In terms of property damage PHMSA records indicate that the 20-year average (1993-2012) cost of significant pipeline incidents is over 318 million dollars, the 10-year average (2003-2012) cost is over 494 million dollars the 5-year average (2008-2012) cost is over 545 million dollars and the 3-year average (2010-2012) cost is over 662 million dollars.

The cost of cleaning up after pipelines just keeps getting more expensive.

Over the last 20 years, pipeline incidents have caused over $6.3 billion in property damages. On average during this time period there were more than 250 pipeline incidents per year, without a single year where that number dropped below 220. During that time, more than 2.5 million barrels of hazardous liquids were spilled and little more than half of those spilled amounts were recovered in cleanup efforts.

One of the factors contributing to the cost of cleanup is the introduction of Alberta’s diluted bitumen to southern markets (The most expensive year on record is 2010 when Enbridge spilled 3.3 million liters or 877,000 gallons of dilbit into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River).

Companies eager to move Canadian dilbit south to refineries and export facilities have been jimmying an aging pipeline infrastructure to handle the more corrosive substance and there is currently no federal oversight to monitor this process.

ExxonMobil’s sixty-five-year-old Pegasus pipeline that ruptured last week was one such retrofitted line. Built in the late 1940s, the old winged horse of a pipeline was reversed in 2006 in order to carry Canadian dilbit to the Gulf Coast via Illinois at a 50 percent increased capacity. The burst line sent a river of at least 84,000 gallons of dilbit running down residential streets in Mayflower and into nearby wetlands.

The exact cause of the pipeline rupture is still unknown.

Many of the major pipeline operators – like Exxon, Enbridge and TransCanada – have been cited for lax inspections, shoddy emergency preparedness, and ineffective spill management and response. Both Exxon and Enbridge have been told their actions in the immediate hours after pipeline ruptures have made spills worse than necessary.

NPR reports “more than half of the nation’s pipelines were built before 1970. More than 2.5 million miles of pipelines run underground throughout the country.”

Debbie Hersman with the National Transportation Safety Board told NPR, “100 percent of the accidents that we’ve investigated were completely preventable.” In many cases companies performed inspections and discovered cracks and corrosion in the line but did not perform repairs before accidents occurred.

In an interview with Reuters, John Stephenson, vice president and portfolio manager at First Asset Investment Management in Toronto described these events as “not good for producers…not good for Canadian oil going south…not good for Keystone.”

But added, “the reality is this oil is going to make it south of the border, quite likely by rail or one of the other pipelines across the Canadian-US border, so I see it as a short-term hiccup at worst.”

Yet even a cursory glance at the history of pipeline accidents in the US shows what is happening in Arkansas is no ‘hiccup’ and will bear no ‘short-term’ consequences. At least, not for the residents of Mayflower.

They have five times the amount of coal, gas and oil that is safe to burn — and they are planning on burning it all. Left to their own devices, they’ll push us past the brink of cataclysmic disaster — life as we know it will be irrevocably altered forever. Unless we rise up and fight back.

Do The Math chronicles follows the climate crusader Bill McKibben as he works with a rising global movement in a David-vs-Goliath fight to change the terrifying math of the climate crisis.

This growing groundswell of climate activists is going after the fossil fuel industry directly, energizing a movement like the ones that overturned the great immoral institutions of the past century, such as Apartheid in South Africa. The film follows people who are putting their bodies on the line the Keystone XL Pipeline and leading universities and institutions to divest in the corporate polluters hellbent on burning fossil fuels no matter the cost.

A new report out today from environmental groups shows that the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would, if approved, be responsible for at least 181 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) each year, comparable to the tailpipe emissions from more than 37.7 million cars or 51 coal-fired power plants.

In documenting the emissions associated with the controversial pipeline project, the report makes real the scale of climate impact and the further hurdles the project would create for the battle against climate change, putting the State Department‘s “business as usual” scenarios into doubt.

The major findings of “Cooking the Books: How The State Department Analysis Ignores the True Climate Impact of the Keystone XL Pipeline” are:

The 181 million metric tons of (CO2e) from Keystone XL is equivalent to the tailpipe emissions from more than 37.7 million cars. This is more cars than are currently registered on the entire West Coast (California, Washington, and Oregon), plus Florida, Michigan, and New York — combined.

Between 2015 and 2050, the pipeline alone would result in emissions of 6.34 billion metric tons of CO2e. This amount is greater than the 2011 total annual carbon dioxide emissions of the United States.

The International Energy Agency has said that two-thirds of known fossil fuel reserves must remain undeveloped if we are to avoid a 2 degree C temperature rise. Constructing the Keystone XL pipeline and developing the tar sands make that goal far more difficult, if not impossible, to reach.

“When evaluating this project, the State Department should apply a simple test: Does its completion bring the U.S. closer to meeting its climate goals? The answer is clearly no, and therefore the project must be denied,” said Steve Kretzmann, Executive Director of Oil Change International.

In its 2012 World Energy Outlook, the IEA is very clear about the impact of climate policy on U.S. oil demand. If meaningful climate policy is pursued, U.S. oil demand would necessarily be cut 50 percent by 2035 and 70 percent by 2050 based on a 2012 baseline.

“Alberta‘s premier was just in Washington, DC noting how essential the pipeline is to meeting increased production of the dirtiest oil on the planet. The numbers in this report make it clear that we can’t afford to help Big Oil meet that goal,” said Elizabeth Shope of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

U.S. demand for oil has declined since 2005 by 2.25 million barrels per day — or the equivalent of almost three Keystone XL pipelines.

“Any objective analysis of the impact of building Keystone shows that it would be a climate catastrophe,” said Ross Hammond, senior campaigner for Friends of the Earth. “Instead, the State Department seems ready to buy into the pipeline propaganda of an army of lobbyists who are trading on their ties to Secretary Kerry and President Obama to taint the decision. The president must act in the national interest, not the interests of Big Oil, and reject the Keystone XL pipeline.”

“Today’s report clearly demonstrates that we can’t protect future generations from the worst impacts of global warming while allowing ourselves to become hooked on even dirtier sources of fuel,” said Daniel Gatti, Get Off Oil Program Director for Environment America. “We need President Obama and Secretary Kerry to say no to tar sands, and no to the Keystone XL pipeline.”

“If he’s to keep his promise to confront climate change to protect America’s wildlife and communities, President Obama should say no to the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline,” said Jim Murphy, senior counsel at the National Wildlife Federation. “Our leaders can’t have it both ways – if they’re truly committed to protecting America’s wildlife and communities from climate change, they need to say no to Keystone XL and massive amounts of climate-disrupting carbon pollution it would deliver.”

German journalists have discovered barrels of radioactive waste on the floor of the English Channel, just a handful of thousands dumped there decades ago. It was previously thought the material had dissipated. Now politicians are calling for the removal of the potentially harmful containers.

Some 28,500 containers of radioactive waste were dropped into the English Channel between 1950 and 1963. Experts have assumed that the containers had long since rusted open, spreading the radioactivity throughout the ocean and thus rendering it innocuous. But a new investigative report from the joint French-German public broadcaster ARTE has concluded that the waste is still intact at the bottom of the sea.

As part of an investigative report set to air on April 23, affiliated German public broadcaster SWR sent an unmanned, remote-controlled submarine into the canal’s depths, where they discovered two nuclear waste barrels at a depth of 124 meters (406 feet) just kilometers from the French coast.

Jettisoned by both the British and the Belgians, the containers hold some of the estimated 17,224 metric tons of low-level radioactive waste dumped in the English Channel’s underwater valley known as Hurd’s Deep, just north of the isle of Alderney, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The British barrels are estimated to have contained 58 trillion becquerels (units of radioactivity), while the Belgian barrels held some 2.4 trillion bequerels. By way of comparison, the European Union’s limit for drinking water is 10 becquerels per liter.

Until recently, my concept of a ‘garbage patch’ was of an area of ocean with large pieces of floating debris, the kind of stray fishing gear and trash from ships and shorelines that collect where currents form eddies far from view of most people.

Having seen my share of sea trash in 20,000+ miles of lake and ocean sailing and even untangled sheets of plastic and thick ropes from the propeller and rudder of my 37-foot sailboat, I was shocked to learn that the kind of garbage scientists are most concerned about is invisible to the naked eye. They’re finding tiny bits of plastic known as “micro-plastics” floating near the surface of the water in high concentrations. The particles are so small that a microscope is needed to even see them.

The scary news this week was about a garbage patch discovered in the Great Lakes last year. Although scientists have studied plastic pollution in the oceans since NOAA researchers discovered the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” in 1988, a team of scientists is conducting the first-of-its-kind research on the open water of the Great Lakes. One of the team members presented preliminary results of a study on the topic at meeting of the American Chemical Society.